I ordered Estrogen from http://www.alldaychemist.com/ a few days back and I have followed my orders progress with increasing levels of Joy and anticipation! It arrived at the post office in my town early this morning and 'should' be delivered to me today if the post office ere actually does their jobs right. It's priority express so it should not be shuffled off to some corner somewhere in the PO like my curtain rods did (they sat in the PO here for a week before I got tired of waiting and went down there and chewed their asses for crappy service and got my rods).

*dances with anticipation and happiness*

Oh Nyx, Goddess of shadows.. PLEASE make sure those dolts at the PO don't drop the ball. Your girl really needs her Estrogen!

~Elain

And.... it has arrived. Taken the first of the day. I am very happy right now. *hugs everyone*

~Elain

Good luck and be safe.

Oh I am def going to be safe. My doctor started me on Aldactone a few weeks back and I've been raising the dosage after each blood test comes back good. Now up to 75mg of Aldactone (I should be up to 100mg by late May) and started the Estrogen at 4mg a day which will get raised to 6mg a day in June and then 8mg in July (due to one of the other medications I am taking that reduces the effectiveness of estrogen I have to go with a higher dose than I was originally going to go on). I also start Finasteride (5mg a day) about the middle of May and the first ten days in June I start cycling Progesterone (5mg a day). I have my plan worked out down to the last dot and all the testing needed for it worked out with my doctor in advance.

Congrats Sis Why not get your doc to prescribe the E though The generic prescription E (micronized 17B E2 hemihydrate) taken sublingually works better than Progynova (estradoil valerate) which is slightly different... The EV has an ester that has to be broken down before it converts to straight E2 so there is a good argument to be made that it cant be taken sublingually.... Thats OK though because it will still work to get you started and you want to start slow... The estrofem from inhouse is like the generic E2 and can be taken sublingually too.... Also you might want to research the Finesteride, Ive read it's effective for MtF HRT at 1.25mg a day... Ive heard of splitting the 5mg pills into quarters...
Also your "progesterone at 5mg a day" sounds like Medroxyprogesterone acetate... Its a synthetic progestin that isnt quite the same as progesterone... Its known to increase clotting risks and its also been linked to depression in trans women... It is quite a bit cheaper than prometrium (micronized bio identical P) though.... Id ask for real P instead of MPA and Ive tried both...

Congrats Sis Why not get your doc to prescribe the E though The generic prescription E (micronized 17B E2 hemihydrate) taken sublingually works better than Progynova (estradoil valerate) which is slightly different... The EV has an ester that has to be broken down before it converts to straight E2 so there is a good argument to be made that it cant be taken sublingually.... Thats OK though because it will still work to get you started and you want to start slow... The estrofem from inhouse is like the generic E2 and can be taken sublingually too.... Also you might want to research the Finesteride, Ive read it's effective for MtF HRT at 1.25mg a day... Ive heard of splitting the 5mg pills into quarters...
Also your "progesterone at 5mg a day" sounds like Medroxyprogesterone acetate... Its a synthetic progestin that isnt quite the same as progesterone... Its known to increase clotting risks and its also been linked to depression in trans women... It is quite a bit cheaper than prometrium (micronized bio identical P) though.... Id ask for real P instead of MPA and Ive tried both...

Hi there Sis! Well.. to make a long convoluted story even longer and more convoluted... err shorter I mean... My insurance has me in a really weird grey area that apparently none of the therapists within my state actually take.. As I can't afford to pay a therapist outright for 1 visit a month let alone the once a week+ most of them want I can't legally be prescribed hormones due to the requirements for a therapist/psyche to sign off on my suffering from GD. No therapist... no hrt...

I am going rounds with my insurance to try to get switched to a different managed health option but the wheels of bureaucracies run slower than dead insects so after several months of fighting with them I said screw it and am doing this on my own. My doctor isn't really happy about it but I did warn her that I wasn't going to wait forever.

Addressing the medications you listed out. I have tried finding micronized 17B E2 hemihydrate (bio-identical estrogen) but none of my searches on AllDayChemist have been successful for that. It keeps bringing up Progynova and other similar drugs many of which are always (out of stock). If you have a name brand I could look up that would be awesome (Estrace keeps bringing up progynova as well lol).

The Finasteride.. yeah I have heard that as well but I also suffer from male Pattern baldness and decided that i'd take the whole tablet instead of splitting it for a cpl months and see if it helps with the hair issue. if it doesn't, then i'll start splitting the tabs.

Prometrium.. that was the first medication I looked at but it only seems to come in 50-100mg tabs and from things I have read, that is far more than needed.... I'd prefer the Prometrium over the Norethisterone Acetate any day as I prefer to use bio-identicals where I can but.. I don't think taking 100mg or even splitting the pills down to 25mg a day would work right.. :-(

~Elain

Congrats on starting, for estradiol hemihydrate try here http://www.unitedpharmacies.com/Estrofem-Oestradiol.html ignore the fact it says its estradiol valerate as its not, they are cheaper than inhouse and take cards, i used their uk site until recently but now my gp prescribes it, i still get the odd item from them though, their finast is very cheap

We'll thats strange, your doc can prescribe whatever the heck he/she wants here in the USA as far as I know, you don't even need informed consent but many like to go that route for legal protection... If your insurance wont cover it that's a different issue but the generic E2 pills from Wal-Mart for instance are cheaper than E2 from overseas without insurance and you know for sure its the real thing... Estrofem from inhousepharmacy.vu is micronized 17B E2, a bit more pricy than Progynova (EV) but either one will work to get started...

The usual dosage for prometrium is 100-200mg and I think they only come in 100mg or 200mg dosage and they are gel caps that you cant split but you can take 100mg twice a day if 200mg is too much for you at one time... There is a TON of good info out there if you search for MTF or transgender HRT ect...

Also I have a hard time believing any insurance wouldn't cover psych visits for whatever reason But again you don't need one if your doctor is willing to prescribe HRT for you.... Neither one of mine did....
A GD "diagnosis" does help if they deny claims though....

We'll thats strange, your doc can prescribe whatever the heck he/she wants here in the USA as far as I know, you don't even need informed consent but many like to go that route for legal protection... If your insurance wont cover it that's a different issue but the generic E2 pills from Wal-Mart for instance are cheaper than E2 from overseas without insurance and you know for sure its the real thing... Estrofem from inhousepharmacy.vu is micronized 17B E2, a bit more pricy than Progynova (EV) but either one will work to get started...

The usual dosage for prometrium is 100-200mg and I think they only come in 100mg or 200mg dosage and they are gel caps that you cant split but you can take 100mg twice a day if 200mg is too much for you at one time... There is a TON of good info out there if you search for MTF or transgender HRT ect...

Also I have a hard time believing any insurance wouldn't cover psych visits for whatever reason But again you don't need one if your doctor is willing to prescribe HRT for you.... Neither one of mine did....
A GD "diagnosis" does help if they deny claims though....

Oregon is so far the only state who's medicare/medicaid covers HRT and SRS... and they have placed care requirements on doctors (see link below), one of which is a therapist/psyche to sign off that I DO suffer from GD before they can prescribe any HRT meds. Because I have Oregon Health Plan and it is managed directly by DHS (open card/ticket) rather than through an HMO (managed card/ticket) I can't get any therapists to take me on because they don't have a contract with DHS itself, just with the managed HMO's.

My doctor is already bending the rules by prescribing the Aldactone (Spiro). Until a therapist/psyche signs off she can't prescribe anything else and until I can get my health care switched to a managed setup.. I can't get a therapist/psyche. So I am stuck in limbo for the foreseeable future where all that is concerned.

I'll check out inhouse as well as United pharmacies that Bobie linked as well. Thanks for the info.

http://www.basicrights.org/resources/faq-on-oregon-health-plan-coverage-for-gender-dysphoria/

~Elain

OK thats great, wish SD had that Still though your doc can prescribe your E without a shrink or insurance... Like I said generic is cheap even out of pocket with a prescription.... When I first started my insurance wouldn't cover my E or spiro or the MPA I was prescribed... It was $4.00 for 2mg of E for 30 days, 6mg would be $12.00, spiro and mpa were $4.00 each for 200mg and 5mg daily 30 day supply.... Once I was "diagnosed" they started covering everything... So Id just ask your doc for an E script since your taking it anyway then battle it out with the insurance company